


Fight

by Shi_Toyu



Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Easter Eggs, Exhaustion, Fights, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Loyalty, Near Death Experiences, The Author Regrets Nothing, Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 10:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5866114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shi_Toyu/pseuds/Shi_Toyu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark has worked himself to the point of near-collapse when yet another Avengers call goes out. Faced with a choice, it's up to him whether or not he stays with his team or goes with the woman who seems so familiar to him. (No OFCs!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fight

 

He wasn’t even sure if it was worth it anymore, truthfully. The constant struggle, the never-ending battles both on and off the field. It was exhausting. There was a constant demand for more, more more. SI wanted new inventions for the market, new upgrades. SHIELD wanted the latest tech _yesterday_ and would Tony hurry his ass up? The Avengers faced battle after battle with enemies old and new, the entire time looking to Tony for new armor and gadgets. Ceaseless.

Tony was tired.

He never seemed to get enough sleep anymore, his brain pounding with a headache from before he opened his eyes in the morning until after he closed them at night. That was, of course, considering he got the chance to close them at all. And it wasn’t that he was complaining. He had so much red in his ledger, as Natasha would put it, that he just couldn’t get rid of it all. Even if he worked like this for the rest of his life, it wouldn’t wipe away all of that red. So why even try?

Every day was a struggle just to keep up as more demands came in and buried him further under the avalanche. He smiled and laughed and joked if anyone noticed, but not many did. They all had their own lives to deal with. They didn’t need to spend the extra energy worrying about the likes of Tony Stark. Even if he was starting to slip. That wasn’t their problem.

Anytime he wasn’t in the field he was in his lab, pounding out projects at a pace only he could achieve. He was making mistakes, though, and thank goodness FRIDAY was there to catch them. She wasn’t as good as JARVIS had been, hadn’t had the time to develop and learn as much as he had, but she was still good. She’d prevented more than one disaster in the past few weeks. Even with her help, though, Tony was falling further and further behind in his projects. There was no time to tinker, no time to play. There was only the grind of one project after another that had to be completed sooner than humanly possible.

Tony had come to dread the Avengers call to action, and practically never went out alone as Iron Man anymore. He only went when he was called, only when he had to. He couldn’t afford to be away from the lab that long, and lord forbid he got hurt and had to spend a day or so in medical. The demands on his time didn’t stop pouring in just because he wasn’t there to fill them. If _only_ life worked that way. Things were probably piling up in his lab by the second while he was stuck out here fighting yet another species of alien that had decided to attack Earth.

They were towering behemoths, easily thirty feet tall, and were covered head to toe in coarse fur. Their over-long arms dragged on the ground when they walked but could whip out for a powerful strike in the blink of an eye. They were resistant to most of the Avengers’ attacks, too. Only Thor’s lightning and Wanda’s magic seemed to do any real damage. The other Avengers had been relegated to playing the parts of glorified distractions and little else. Clint, unfortunately, had already been clipped by one of the aliens’ strikes and had been dragged off to medical by Steve. The Captain would return as soon as he could, but it would be a few minutes at the very least. Emergency personnel were being kept far back from the action.

With a roar, the Hulk tackled yet another alien, the two of them tumbling to the ground. Disturbingly enough, the Hulk’s punches didn’t seem to be doing much damage but at least they were keeping the creature well and truly occupied. Vision was facing off against his own opponent, floating just barely out of reach and egging it into taking wild swings anyway. Despite his aloof demeanor, Vision was quite valuable in a fight. He’d proved himself extremely proficient in finding and exploiting the weaknesses of any opponent they faced. Tony figured it was only a matter of time before he discovered a weakness for these creatures as well. Sooner rather than later would be good, though.

Tony twisted away from yet another strike, sending himself nearly spiraling into a building. His brain was having trouble keeping up, damn it all, and his reaction time was suffering because of it. It didn’t help that with Clint gone, the team didn’t have anyone keeping an eye on things from above. Wilson was, of course, off visiting family with no hope of getting back in time to join to fight. Natasha vaulted off of a balcony somewhere above Tony and landed on his opponent’s back, sinking two knives into the creature’s flesh to give herself some handholds. The alien made a noise of disgruntlement but trudged onward none the less. It didn’t seem bothered by the human hanging off of its back, but one of its companions certainly was.

A limb shot out, aiming for Natasha, and Tony dove before he even had time to think about the consequences of his actions. His body collided with the arm and warnings blared across the hub as the side of his suit crumpled under the force of the blow and he was sent flying. The suit flipped over itself as it crashed into the ground before ripping up a line of pavement as Tony came to a stop. He groaned pitifully.

The muscles in his back screamed at him from being twisted in ways they shouldn’t have been and there was metal cutting into his side. He could feel the sharp edges digging further into his flesh with every movement and the hot, sticky blood making its way out of the wound. There was no way he was going to get out of a trip to medical at this rate and that meant even more wasted time before he was able to get back to his projects. Pepper had been calling him for days about the new upgrades for the StarkPad and that’d be fine except that Fury had him working on a whole slew of security protocols. Now he’d have to add ‘suit repairs’ to the top of the list. Tony might as well kiss goodbye any hope of getting some sleep tonight. Again.

He lay on the ground for a few seconds, willing his body to find the energy to get back up. It wasn’t easy. Between the pain and the exhaustion, Tony was pretty sure he could sleep for a week. His back protested loudly as he pushed himself back to his feet, swaying slightly. Oh, yeah. He’d be making liberal use of his rolling chair when this was all done. No way was he standing any more than was strictly necessary. He was going to be hurting enough from being bent over those lines of code for so long. He wasn’t exactly young anymore.

“You alright, Iron Man?” Natasha’s voice came over the coms.

“Dandy.”

“Good. I appreciate the save. Next time, try not to get so knocked around yourself in the process.”

Tony grinned to himself. Despite appearances, he knew Natasha cared in her own way. That was the bright side of his team, they actually gave a shit about him. Okay, maybe not so much Wanda, but the others totally did.

“I’ll see what I can do. Try not to play the damsel in destress in the meantime, yeah?”

Because he was an asshole like that.

The battle waged on, Cap rejoining them as Vision figured out a few specific spots for the team to aim for that proved more effective even with just firearms. Tony could feel the last dregs of his energy slipping away bit by bit as he took aim at a tender spot on one of the aliens’ backs and fired off shots with both repulsors. The beast roared its displeasure and rounded on him. Shit. Two more of the aliens came ambling over to join their comrade.

Tony’s first instinct was to jet up and out of there, but the beast he’d hit had other ideas. Clawed fingers wrapped around the ankle of the suit and slammed him into the ground, cracking the concrete. The move was repeated a couple more times. Apparently it was fun.

Tony couldn’t even see straight anymore, his world was spinning so badly. The pain in his side made it nearly impossible to move and he could taste blood in his mouth. Several of his ribs had given way, he was sure. He probably had a punctured lung. Even just breathing was a struggle. A pitiful whine escaped him as he attempted to call for backup, but that was all he could manage.

The aliens stared down at his crumpled form a moment longer and fuck them. Seriously. They either needed to finish him off or move on already. Tony drew himself together and put everything he had into giving FRIDAY orders.

“Sh-shoulder missiles, bud. T-take out their ab-abdominal…”

He couldn’t quite manage to get any more out than that, but FRIDAY seemed to understand him just fine. The missiles popped out of his shoulder and took just a few beats longer than normal before they were jettisoning off to embed themselves in the soft patches of the creature’s stomachs that Vision had identified earlier. The beasts roared and staggered back before the missiles exploded, sending blood and chunks of flesh in every direction. Great. That was going to look fantastic on the nightly news. He’d probably have to do a press conference to explain his actions and everything. Maybe in a week or so, though, when he’d had a chance to heal up a bit.

God, his entire body hurt.

“Boss,” FRIDAY spoke in his ear, the AI sounding worried, “assistance is on the way. I apologize for the delay.”

Oh, so FRIDAY must have called for help earlier when Tony was unable to. Good for her. This was exactly why FRIDAY was awesome. She learned so quickly. Tony knew he was smiling just a bit as his eyes fluttered shut. He was just so tired. He’d only rest for a moment, then he’d be able to stand up again and get back to the fight, back to work in his lab. He only needed a moment.

He wasn’t sure how long had passed when there was suddenly fresh air against his face and the sound of cursing in Russian. He blinked his eyes open sluggishly, squinting against the sun, to see Natasha looking around for possible threats with one hand to the comm unit in her ear.

“I’m with Stark now. It doesn’t look good. I don’t think he can be carried. We need an evac _stat_.”

He could hear it as she spoke the words, but they filtered through the speakers in his helmet, too. She must have used the emergency release latches on the faceplate. That would explain all the fresh air and sunlight. Tony must have made some sort of noise because suddenly she was looking down at him, the sunlight dancing through her hair and making it look like wildfire.

“Hold on. He’s conscious again. I’m gonna see how aware he is.” One delicate, deadly hand found his cheek. “Tony? Can you hear me?”

He tried to focus on her, he really did, but his attention kept sliding. How was he supposed to keep his attention on her face when she had an inferno swirling around it? God, it was bright. He squinted his eyes against the sun a little more and a light, lilting laugh rang though the air. A shadow fell over his face, shielding him from the sun. A woman had appeared at his other side, opposite Natasha. He couldn’t make out her face, but she _felt_ familiar somehow. Natasha didn’t seem to notice her.

“You’re tired, Tony Stark,” she said. “Perhaps you should rest.”

He gave her an odd look. How did he know this woman? How did she know him?

“I have known you your entire life,” that melodic voice spoke again. “Do you wish to rest, my Merchant? I cannot make the choice for you.”

Rest sounded really nice, actually. But he couldn’t. He had too much to do. Somewhere in the background, Tony could hear Natasha back on her comm, sounding a bit frantic. Natasha never sounded frantic. Something must be really wrong. He should go back.

“Are you sure?” the woman asked. She knelt down beside him, but he still couldn’t make out her face. “You have earned your rest and going back from this,” she made a sweeping gesture over his body, her hand glinting like pale bone in the light, “will not be easy to recover from. You will not have another opportunity to rest for a long time.”

He would have snorted if he had the energy. Like overworking himself was something he wasn’t long used to by this point. All he needed was a quick nap and some painkillers and he’d be good to go. So maybe just a _little_ rest, but that was it. And it’d have to be later. His team needed him now. A sigh could be heard from the woman above him before she stood again.

“I should have known, I suppose, but I had _so_ been hoping you would rest. Just remember, should your burdens ever become too much, you need only call upon me.”

She was moving away then, and the sun was back in Tony’s face. He could hear a sound like chopper blades off in the distance and Natasha’s voice much closer. One of her hands was still on his face, the other grasping one of the gauntlets.

“Stay with me, Tony, okay? Can you do that? I need you to _stay with me_. Don’t you dare be checking out on me now. Taken out by the villain of the week? Clint would never let you hear the end of it.”

Tony’s fingers twitched in an attempt to hold her hand back and his blood-coated lips quirked upward just a fraction.

“’mm here,” he slurred. “Don…tell Clin…”

A relieved smile broke out across her face.

“You got it, Tony. Whatever you say. Just don’t go anywhere, okay?”

That seemed like an odd thing for her to say. Where would he go? In this condition? At least she didn’t sound so frantic anymore. A breeze swept by, carrying with it that light, lilting laugh.

“Be well, my Merchant.”

**Author's Note:**

> So, hopefully you all have figured out exactly who Tony was talking to. :)


End file.
